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Iranian Exiles Struggle to Stay Involved

Aliakbar Mousavi Khoeini, center, a former member of Iran’s parliament, during a meeting with Google where he asked the company to provide more Persian-language Internet tools. Credit
Vanessa Vick for The New York Times

A political tract hammered out by an Iranian feminist this spring presents a snapshot of activism from exile.

Incensed by an aging ayatollah’s pronouncement that women exposing excessive flesh cause earthquakes, the young lawyer, who fled to Germany after her arrest in Iran, fired off a Web post accusing all Iranian men of complicity in the oppression of women propagated by the ayatollahs.

The diatribe went viral instantly, provoking a global debate among Iranians, with countless men denouncing the premise. But the furor soon died, underscoring the quandary faced by former high-ranking reformist politicians, journalists, academics, student leaders and others who have sought safety abroad since the contested presidential election in June 2009.

The Web keeps them involved with events inside Iran, easing some of the isolation of life in exile. Still, they can no longer directly confront the government in the Islamic republic, where widespread bloody repression has left the opposition Green Movement with an uncertain future. From Ankara, Turkey, to Oslo to New York, the exiles struggle to remain relevant, hoping that by reflecting on past experience they can somehow shape whatever future emerges.

“They have shifted the goal posts in saying that Iran is ruled by an illegitimate government; that had never been said before by so many people who were important inside the government,” said Behrouz Afagh, the director of the BBC World Service for Asia and the Pacific, including its successful Persian-language television channel. “But they have a future only if things inside Iran keep moving. Once out they might be effective for a year or two, then what they say will not have the same resonance.”

Given the scattershot nature of the exiles’ escapes, their exact numbers are elusive, though the United Nations says there has been an increase in the number of academics, journalists and others seeking refugee status on the grounds of persecution for political opinions.

The Iranian government has tried to combat their use of the Internet by slowing the Web, so YouTube videos or other large files are often impossible to view from inside the country. But enough information passes back and forth that many exiles feel connected.

In Brooklyn, Sadra M. Shahab, 25, an Iranian graduate student who grew his black hair long in protest even before he left Isfahan, signs onto Facebook in a design laboratory at Pratt Institute.

One posting on Mr. Shahab’s Facebook page typified the tensions over strategy between those outside the country who urge greater action and those inside who fear for their lives. It was a picture of movie directors, scriptwriters and actors meeting with the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who lectured them about the importance of television in spreading the Islamic Revolution.

Some exiles condemned the artists for not boycotting the session. But people in Iran defended them, saying no one would dare ignore such a summons.

Mr. Shahab, a frequent rally participant, gets inspiration for his chants like “no to sanctions” by reading what the former Green presidential candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, writes from inside Iran. The constant communication back and forth will have a cumulative effect, he contends, although it may take a decade to bear fruit.

Women play a prominent role among the exiles, as they have recently in the Iranian opposition.

In Iran, Asieh Amini, 37, started a campaign called Stop Stoning Forever, even collecting bloody rocks from one stoning. Such tactics are out of reach from Norway, where she fled last year, so in June she joined a dozen activists from inside and outside Iran in creating a 133-page pamphlet called “Once Again From the Same Street.” It suggested that the Greens could learn from the long struggle for women’s rights and its success in building grass-roots organizations in Iran.

“The Greens have no continuous or purposeful program of activism; they are reacting to events,” Ms. Amini said. While nodding to security concerns, she concluded, “If the purpose of the Greens is not to build a network, then what purpose does it serve?”

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Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh, 52, a women’s rights activist who was sentenced in absentia in May to two and a half years in prison and 30 lashes for “acts against national security,” is now working from Amsterdam to establish an online television channel to broadcast discussions about women’s rights.

As the months, and years, go by, many exiles battle depression, the gnawing sense that removed from the fray, they no longer matter. Some focus on winning the small battles — like loosening sanctions banning sales to Iran of certain software applications, a goal they recently achieved — that they hope will lead to bigger victories.

On a recent muggy afternoon in Washington, Aliakbar Mousavi Khoeini, a former member of Parliament, sat at a white table in a small Google conference room, imploring a top executive to provide more Persian-language Internet tools.

Speaking in halting English acquired during his year in the United States, Mr. Mousavi Khoeini told Robert O. Boorstin, the company’s director of public policy, that activists inside Iran desperately needed Google Earth, Google advertising and other services that could help thwart repression.

Mr. Boorstin was sympathetic if noncommittal, promising to consult with various engineers.

Iranians have always been a terribly fractious people, and the diaspora is no exception. Younger Iranians seem particularly mistrustful of the old guard from the reformist administration of President Mohammad Khatami, suspecting that its priority is to return to power rather than to achieve democracy.

Atollah Mohajerani, a former minister of guidance now in Britain, raised hackles in youthful circles when a Lebanese weekly quoted him in April as saying that the Green Movement sought reform within the current Constitution.

Although the harsh government crackdown created greater solidarity among exiles, such differences are a sign that the diaspora has not yet jelled into an opposition party. Some reject the very idea, fearing that would buttress government accusations that the opposition is a foreign conspiracy.

Exiles believe that the administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pushed thousands into exile to rid itself of critics without creating martyrs. But the government evidently still considers some prominent exiles a threat. Kayhan, a newspaper close to the supreme leader, frequently attacks Rooz Online, a news site that Nooshabeh Amiri helped found from her exile in Paris. One recent editorial said it sought to turn the Green Movement into a “carnival of crazy animals.” More visibly, on the main nightly news in recent months the Iranian government has broadcast a series of video clips devised to besmirch high-profile opposition members.

One depicted Shirin Ebadi, the lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who has been abroad since the election, as working with foreign powers to destroy the Islamic republic while battering her husband at home. Many exiles welcome the government’s smear tactics as evidence that they are having some success. Yet others recognize that the impact of overseas efforts is necessarily limited.

In New York City, another activist, a slight dark woman, who does not want her name printed because she continues to visit family in Iran, said she still took part in antigovernment demonstrations, even though the whole exercise felt vaguely absurd.

“We do come here because we think it matters, but honestly, you don’t change anything by coming out onto the streets of New York,” the woman said at a June 12 rally outside the United Nations. “It is partly a psychological thing; you should not let the battle fade.”

Correction: July 27, 2010

Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this article contained a photo caption that reversed the middle and last names of Aliakbar Mousavi Khoeini.

Artin Afkhami contributed reporting from Washington.

A version of this article appears in print on July 28, 2010, on Page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Iranian Exiles Struggle From Afar to Make Difference in Homeland. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe